Pelosi: 'Very disappointed' Build Back Better bill won't be for $3.5 trillion

During a press conference on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was "very disappointed" the Build Back Better bill won't be for the $3.5 trillion that had been proposed.

Video Transcript

NANCY PELOSI: The whole time, though, we were all focused on building back better, the Europeans and others from all over the world, the G20, were interested in what was happening here. And of course, these discussions went into the nights because of the time difference. We have some important decisions to make in the next few days so that we can proceed.

I'm very disappointed that we're not going with the original $3.5 trillion, which was very transformative. But in the-- whatever we do, we'll make decisions. That will continue to be transformative about women in the workplace. So transformed because of childcare and universal pre-K which sort of go together. The child tax credit, home health care, workers. Men benefit too but largely women.

And women are those caregivers as well. So not only to free up women to go into the workplace for their own professions and interests but also to recognize the work that women do in providing that health care, issues that relate to family medical leave, and the rest.

The Build Back Better is three baskets. It's climate, which we spent some time talking about already-- health, job security, and moral responsibility. It's health care, the issues that relate to the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid, and family care. I mentioned some of those issues already.

And so whatever we do, it will be transformative. It will produce results. And we are very grateful to our president for saying, I want to pass the bipartisan legislation on infrastructure. But I will not confine my vision for the future to what can be in that bill. Hence we need to Build Back Better.

In addition to that, of course-- and again, let me just say. That's really a very important jobs bill. It's a jobs bill. And it's a bill about our children. And it is about our values. So I'm pretty excited about the prospect that we have to make some difficult decisions, of course, because we have less-- fewer resources but, nonetheless, no diminishing of our commitment to a transformative agenda for the children.